Yahoo stinks at user experience Oct05 '06

When people ask me why I use Google products/services over Yahoo, I give them the simple, straight answer:

"Yahoo doesn’t know jack about the user experience."

Brief explanation of user experience

What is "user experience," you wonder?

"User experience" is a broad term. On a web page, "user experience" may consist of guiding the user to the right spot, ... or gracefully making them aware of errors and mistakes, without interrupting the flow of the application.

Without getting into too many "flowery explanations," some may think of "user experience" as how the page treats you.

While browsing the web, how many times have you come across indecipherable error messages, such as:

ERROR 1059, Cannot complete request. ADODB 411009 Bad string completion.

In this case, the page treats you like an idiot. It not only refuses to let you complete the task you were trying to do, but it also presents you with "techno mumble jumble" - that makes absolutely no sense to the end-user.

This is bad user experience.

How a web page responds to mistakes and errors is a strong sign of how much "user experience" is instilled into the application.

Yahoo lacks in user experience

Yahoo lacks greatly in this area. Their "user experience" is usually not present at all.

Here are a few reasons why:

• They ask for your Yahoo password at the oddest of times, completely interrupting the flow of the application.
• Sometimes, when there is an error with a submission, they present you with a technical error message, and a link to the previous page - but if the previous page was the log-in screen (see the first item above), you get directed back to that log-in screen.
• They often clutter their pages with so much excess information: advertisements and general links.

Why Google excels at user experience

Google is all about their users. Functionally, if you expect a Google application to do something, chances are it will do it. They seem to have every angle covered. And if not, they listen to their users on Google Groups, and make suggested changes.

Google’s applications are also very clean and uncluttered. Google Ads are typically present, but always in a "snug" spot, away from the main interaction on the page - away from the user experience.

Why user experience matters

User experience is the single most important aspect on web pages, but also the hardest to do right.

It takes lots of time, patience, and money to create an excellent user experience.

It’s understandable that a giant like Google has the resources for a great user experience.

But what’s not clear is why Yahoo lacks in this area. Out of the three: time, patience, money - Yahoo must only be lacking with patience, because it certainly has the other two.

Categories: Google , Usability , Web Sites , Yahoo

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